To Find My Way To You
by carolinelea
Summary: And oh, love, when you say to me / that your heart breaks every time I leave / I would set out across the sea / just to find my way to you
1. So You Just Bleed

_I've been doing bits and pieces of my other story for quite some time (I'm sorry for the non-update…it's coming soon, I promise!), but they're all out of order and I need to sit down and do some continuity. Don't worry - Elphaba, Fiyero, and Glinda are still adventuring. _

_In the meantime, however, I haven't been able to get Chuck and Sarah out of my head (from the WONDERFUL show, Chuck, on NBC). I think it has to do with the following reasons: _

_1) My fiancé IS Chuck, basically, but without the whole Intersect thing. The smile, the personality, the charm, the unwavering devotion. Yeah, I know. I'm a VERY lucky girl._

_2) I'm a sucker for a good relationship fic, and this one just won't leave me alone until it gets written._

_And so, without further ado, I present a series of moments (not necessarily canon, though some are accurate) between Chuck and Sarah, based on the lovely song Find My Way To You, by Bebo Norman. I highly suggest you all go buy it on iTunes. I own nothing - it all belongs to NBC and Bebo. It will be a series of seven chapters, based on the parts of the song._

_I dedicate this to Theo, my future husband. I love you. Thanks for finding the cracks in my armor._

_Cheers,_

_Caroline_

**To Find My Way To You**

_So You Just Bleed_

_Well, I can't find the words to say_

_Just to make, make this go away_

_So you just bleed_

_And I can't sleep_

_Tonight_

When the bullet grazed Sarah's shoulder, she didn't wince. A little scratch - the bullet hadn't even really hit her. She was fine.

She continued throwing her elbows, whirling her kicks, keeping her balance by constantly looking at one spot on the far wall. Connect there - a hit to the nose, smashed into her assailant's unlucky head. Her blonde hair was coming down out of its updo, and although she knew it was very likely that her new blue dress wasn't going to make it very far on a mission to bust a Russian smuggler's ring, she cursed silently when she heard the hem rip against the next guy's knife.

With a grunt, she put a well-placed knee in his groin. The second assailant sputtered and groaned, dropping to the floor, clutching his stomach. Sarah quickly stabbed him in the jugular with two tranquilizer darts - just to be safe - and turned to find the knife he had dropped, which had clattered to the floor and came to a halt only a few inches away from a familiar black Converse shoe.

"Chuck!" she snapped, looking at him furiously. He held his hands up, his face all stress. His tuxedo had a few rips and burns on it, and she was instantly distracted when she noticed them.

"What happened to you?" she exclaimed.

"Bomb - in the car - couldn't stay -" he gasped, as her blue eyes gave him a once-over, to make sure he was in one piece.

"Did the car explode?"

"No - Casey - threw the bomb -" he wheezed. Then, suddenly, "_Sarah_!"

She whirled around to find that a third smuggler had his gun leveled at them. She reacted without thinking, the actions occurring before she could put rational thought to them.

_Grab knife - push, Chuck, ground - throw - got him - NO!_

Sarah was too late. Chuck's pant leg blew open as he was curled up next to the wall, and she felt her whole world begin to collapse when she heard him cry out, watched his brown eyes screw up in pain.

"Casey!" she shrieked frantically into her watch. "Casey!"

"On my way, Walker," came his winded reply in her wire, but Sarah was past listening. She was smoothing Chuck's dark curls away from his forehead, her heart breaking as she watched his lips pale alarmingly fast.

"Chuck," she said, almost pleading. "Chuck, I need to look at your leg." Her voice was weak and shaking, and she knew he could tell.

"Ow…Sarah," he groaned. His warm brown eyes were hazy with pain as he looked her in the face desperately. When he shuddered and slipped into unconsciousness, she paused, wondering if she could handle seeing his blood. Seeing anything that was hurting Chuck was likely to make her go from professional to ballistic, but then she remembered that she didn't have the time to spare her own emotions. He was the Asset, she was his handler.

She scooted down to his shin and ripped open the hole where the bullet had penetrated the Asset's leg. She exhaled in relief when she realized the bullet had only hit muscle. The bones were all intact, all the major arteries whole and flowing within his veins. Sarah quickly unbuckled the Asset's belt, making a tourniquet around his leg to stave off the bleeding.

"Walker? Is the moron okay?" And Casey was there, kneeling beside her, a deep gash across the bridge of his nose. He put his gun in his belt quickly, his fingers surprisingly gentle as he searched for the bullet inside the Asset's flesh.

"How did this happen?" he growled, looking at her in confusion.

"I threw him to the right, instead of the left," she whispered, her eyes closed in shame. Casey's silence did not put her at ease, but when she chanced a glance at him, she was shocked to find him nodding.

"That's happened to me before," he said, and he scooped Chuck up and over his shoulder. "You have no way of knowing which way the gun will shoot when they're stabbed."

"It's not an excuse," she said miserably.

"No, it isn't," he agreed seriously as they jogged to the car. "But it's also not your fault."

Sarah climbed into the backseat of Casey's Crown Vic, which he had covered with liquid-resistant tarps, and then settled Chuck's head into her lap as Casey deposited him in after her.

"Are you hit?" Casey asked as soon as he saw her shoulder, but she shrugged. It was only when he nodded meaningfully toward the offending wound when she saw how much blood had dried all the way down her arm.

"Grazed me, I'll be fine. Casey, two of those guys are tranqued so Beckman can question them."

"I'll tell the team. They'll be here in two minutes." He paused as he shut the car door. "Walker, don't worry. He'll be fine."

She nodded mutely as Casey put the car in drive, his phone at his ear. His eyes flickered up to the rearview mirror every thirty or seconds or so to make sure Walker hadn't lost it. When he saw her lean down to whisper something in Chuck's ear, however, he kept his eyes on the road.

He didn't like emotions besides loyalty in his teams, but Walker was by far the most mature, dedicated partner he had ever had, and if her dedication was part emotional connection, well…he shifted in his seat, clearing his throat as he did so. At least it kept the moron alive, and at least it kept him cooperative.

___

Sarah refused to go home that night. Instead, she showered at Castle while the doctor they had given clearance extracted the bullet and cleaned Chuck's leg up. The wound was as shallow as a gunshot could possibly be, and although Chuck would be on crutches for a few weeks, it would be easy to explain as a sprained ankle, as long as Ellie and Devon didn't see the bare wound.

She put her towel-dried hair up in a messy knot and changed into the spare clothes she kept in her locker. When she donned the black long-sleeved shirt and black military pants, she felt a little more comforted. Her job usually required her to wear skimpy bikinis and silk dresses, but she always felt safer in thick cotton.

Casey and Sarah were debriefed while Chuck was still out. Sarah couldn't help but glance at him stretched out on their hospital palette every minute or so until General Beckman finally addressed her mistake.

"Agent Walker."

Sarah snapped to attention immediately, tearing her eyes away from Chuck's bandage.

"Yes, General."

Beckman narrowed her eyes at her, folding her hands on the desk. "I understand the Asset was harmed on this mission."

Sarah swallowed. "Yes, General."

"On your watch."

"Yes, General."

Beckman shook her head. "Walker, this is very serious -"

"General, with your permission?"

Beckman looked sharply at Casey as he interrupted. "Go ahead, Major Casey."

"Agent Walker had no way of knowing which way the gunman would shoot when she pushed the Asset to the ground. I told him to run when I found the bomb, and Agent Walker was in the midst of a knife fight when he showed up. She eliminated the gunman with the enemy's knife as she pushed him, and the gunshot went wild."

General Beckman pursed her lips, thinking.

"Agent Walker, is that true?"

Sarah looked from Casey back to the screen. "Yes, General."

"Very well. We're lucky it was only his leg this time…and there will _not_ be a next time," she added menacingly, closing the file in front of her.

"No, ma'am," both agreed. When the screen went dark a second later, Sarah turned to her partner.

"Thank you, Casey."

He grunted, turning to the stair case to leave. "You don't have to thank me. It was the truth."

Sarah was silent until he reached the landing. "No, I mean…thank you."

Casey paused at the door of the freezer. He looked down at where she stood, arms crossed and misleadingly small ten feet below him. He nodded and left without a word.

Sarah clenched her teeth and squeezed her eyes closed, reveling in the silence. No guns, no shouting, nothing. And then -

"Sarah?"

Her lungs constricted at the sound of his voice, wary in the darkness of the room next to her. She went to his side quickly, a sad smile in place.

"Hi, Chuck."

He coughed a few times, blinked, and then saw the bandage on his leg.

"Did -"

"Very shallow shot. You took it like a champ," she joked quietly, nudging him with her elbow, even though she felt nothing like joking. He stared at her, his brows furrowed.

"I really got shot?"

She nodded, unable to meet his eyes.

Neither of them said anything until her alert hearing noticed a change in his breathing. She looked up to see him struggling to breathe, and when she saw one single tear slip down the side of his face toward his pillow, she nearly buckled under the weight of it.

"I hate this," he said. "I _hate_ this…this _thing _in my head."

Struggling to maintain her composure, she put a hand on top of his, even though the contrast of size between the two of them was almost comical.

"It's my fault," she whispered. When he looked at her, his eyes widened in surprise when he saw that her own eyes were filled with tears.

"Oh, no, no, Sarah, no," he said desperately, and tried to sit up to - what? Put his arms around her? Comfort her? She would never let him. Instead, he leaned on one elbow and awkwardly held out a hand, palm up. She snorted derisively through her tears, wrapping her fingers around his own.

"I'm your handler. It's my job to protect you. I failed tonight."

Chuck was quiet. He squeezed her fingers more tightly.

"I don't have the words," she whispered again, feeling more and more miserable with every passing second. "I don't have the right words to make you feel better about any of this - all the things we put you throw, that you never asked for. But I've always been able to protect you." She gulped, fighting the sobs that were trying to claw out of her mouth. "And I - I couldn't even do that tonight. You could have died, and…it would have been all my fault."

She was crying in earnest now, but she pulled away from the bed and sat down in a chair a few feet away. He stared at her, one hand still dangling off the side where she had let go of it.

"I didn't die," he reminded her childishly.

She tried to smile. "I know." Her mouth wanted to form the rest of her normal words, the ones that told him that nothing would ever hurt him while she was there, but they sounded cheap as she looked at him, lying there, unable to walk.

Instead, she sat in the chair until the sun came up. He fell asleep soon after she sat down, and although a night of sleep probably would have done Sarah a lot of good, her guilty conscience somehow assuaged itself by repeating a mantra over and over, punishing her with a lack of sleep. She deserved the punishment. It felt savage. It felt fair. It felt as though the more pain she pushed on herself, the more she took away from Chuck. Chuck, who was innocent, who didn't deserve it.

_I promise this won't happen again. I promise this won't happen again. I promise this won't happen again._

It was 7:34 before he stirred, and when he did, Sarah was shaken out of her reverie. She walked over to the bed, smiling as he looked up at her sleepily. She had to steel her heart against feeling every time she looked at him, but seeing his kind brown eyes just opening from sleep was more than she could handle. She couldn't help but lay a soft palm against his forehead very briefly, as he blinked. She looked from her hand back to his eyes, which were, as always, communicating more commitment to her than she deserved.

"Do you need more painkillers?" she asked softly, flexing her hand underneath the hospital bed.

"Didn't you sleep?" he answered her, looking at the circles under her eyes with concern.

"I'll take that as a yes," she replied, turning to get more medicine from the cabinet. She put four pills in his hand, along with a small cup of water. He swallowed them obediently, but before she could say anything else, he reached up a hand and cupped her cheek.

She froze, very glad that the camera in this room was turned to face away from them.

"Sarah," Chuck said seriously. "You did your best. It won't happen again. I trust you…I always…" he smiled his quirky little smile, his one dimple showing. "I always will, even now."

She nodded. The nerve endings in her cheek were on fire.

"Thank you, Chuck. I…" she blinked rapidly. "This won't happen again."

"I know," he said, and settled back into his pillow. Sarah cleared her throat and walked to the door, ducking her head to hide the flush in her cheeks.

"Emmett gave you the day off, by the way," she added. "Casey told him you're sick, and Ellie and Devon think you're at my apartment."

"Oh, good," he said to the ceiling. "Nerd Herding on crutches is not high on my list of things I'd like to do today."

"What would you like to do today?" she called to him from the next room. She peeked over the computer screen when she heard no response, but he had fallen back into slumber from the drugs.

_I promise this won't happen again_, she repeated again to herself as she began to look over the reports from the interrogations of the smugglers from the night before.

_Never again._

____  
_

_Please remember to leave me a review! I really appreciate them, especially when it comes to improving my characterizations. I don't like any characters to be doing or saying things they wouldn't normally do or say. So please help me out!  
_


	2. Across The Lines

_Next installment - enjoy! _

_Cheers,_

_Caroline_

**To Find My Way To You**

_Across The Lines_

_Cause it's hard to see_

_Just what you mean_

_Across the lines_

_That bring your voice to me_

_But I can hear_

_Your every tear_

_That you cry_

Chuck stared at the picture of him and Sarah on his phone. It had been his background since they had taken it a few months ago on the beach. It had been a fake date, of course, with Ellie and Awesome, but a wonderful one. Sarah was in a black bikini and big floppy straw hat, a goofy smile on her face as he had scooped her up into his arms for the picture. It had been the first time he had picked her up, and he had been more than surprised when she laughed hysterically as he did it. He had been expecting a gentle reprimand, a look that told him he had crossed the line, but instead, Ellie had snapped the picture of them smiling at each other.

Sarah had left only three days before, but the knot of anxiety in his stomach refused to unravel itself as long as he heard nothing. She had said she would call. He didn't need to call her. She was going to call.

He put the phone down on the desk as Jeff walked by.

"Jeff, honestly, do you shower?" he muttered, mostly to himself, and jumped in shock when Jeff was suddenly next to him, breathing down his neck.

"Not last night. Had…business to do." Jeff's eyes were slightly unfocused, his greasy hair stuck up in its usual lack-of-hygiene way.

Chuck fixed him with an incredulous look. "Business that didn't give you time to bathe?"

Jeff smirked and walked away.

"This job is going to kill me," Chuck muttered. "It's going to kill me, it's going to kill me…"

And then his phone rang. He grabbed it quickly, and when he saw Sarah's shy smile greeting him on the caller ID, the knot unraveled and his stomach rose into his throat painfully.

He was answering it on the second ring as he walked to the cage in the back room.

"Hey, Sarah, hey," he said breathlessly.

"Hi, Chuck," she replied, and he was immediately aware of how tired she sounded.

"Are you -" he stopped for a second, sweeping the room with his eyes to make sure no one was around. "Alright? Are you alright?"

She sighed. "I'm fine."

He waited for her to say something else, but nothing else came.

"Where are you?" he asked, without any real hope that she would tell him.

"You know I can't tell you that."

"Yeah, I - I know, I just thought I'd ask."

Morgan came into the back, whistling, but when Chuck shot him a "not now" look, he promptly gave him a thumbs up and spun on one foot back out the door.

"So you're fine," Chuck said once more, to confirm.

"I'm in Montana."

"Uh…what?"

"I'm in Montana. My dad…" Sarah trailed off, and Chuck instantaneously picked up on the fact that her voice was a little too shaky.

"Your dad," he repeated slowly.

"My dad's dead," she said, and even though he knew she was trying to hide it as much as possible, he could hear the emotion thickening her voice. "He got shot by some competing con artists."

Chuck sank to the floor, his back against the links of the cage. He leaned his head back, so that he was facing the heavens, searching for something to say.

"He's gone," Sarah said, and when she accidentally let a sob escape, Chuck was walking to the time cards, punching his for his clock out.

"I'm coming right now -"

"No," she said swiftly. "You will stay there. That's an order."

"Sarah," he said, angry. "I'm coming."

"You have no idea where I am in Montana. You will stay there," she repeated. "I'll hang up on you right now and call Casey so he can lock you in Castle if he needs to."

"Sarah!"

"I mean it." Her tone was commanding. "This place isn't cleared and we have to keep you safe. You will stay there."

He was at the Nerd Herder, fishing for his keys in his pocket, when he realized that he would never be able to outrun Casey, much less the CIA or NSA. Frustrated, he clenched his phone tighter until his fingers went numb.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, and although she didn't say anything, he could picture how she looked. In his mind's eye, she was curled up in a chair, her knees drawn up to her chest, gaze unfocused. Her blonde hair was hanging around her face, which was drawn in with exhaustion.

In Butte, Sarah was indeed curled up in a chair, her chin resting on her knees, tears running down her face. She hung up the phone without saying goodbye, but when Chuck took it upon himself to text her three hours' worth of cheesy jokes, like "What does a fish say when it swims into a wall? 'Dam!,' and 'After the cable guy got married, they had a great reception,'" her face relaxed into a sad smile, and occasionally she was able to stop the warm saltwater dripping down onto her jeans.

She packed her bags that night, and took a red eye flight back to Burbank. Her dad wasn't having a funeral, since no one knew who he was, and she was sure that mourning him - or her idea of what he should have been for her - would be easier with Chuck's warm smile to greet her every day.

___

_Review! Pretty please?_


	3. Across The Sea

_Here, have another!_

_Cheers,_

_Caroline_

**To Find My Way To You**

_Across The Sea_

_And, oh, love, when you say to me_

_That your heart breaks every time I leave_

_I would set out across the sea_

_Just to find my way to you_

"Walker," came a growl through her gravelly overseas connection. She was on Skype, finishing a three-way debriefing with Beckman and Casey. Beckman had sent her overseas on a solo mission to follow up on some chatter they had heard in Munich about a new Intersect being constructed. It turned out that the suspected group of scientists were a front for Fulcrum, but one that was new enough to be taken down easily.

"Yeah, Casey."

Casey paused until Beckman ended her connection to fix her with a fierce look.

"The moron keeps begging me to tell you to call him."

Sarah straightened, pretending to organize a pile of papers into three different stacks on her hotel desk.

"So this is me telling you," Casey continued, a smirk on his face. "Do it or I'll tranq him so that he won't wake up until you get back next week. He's being an annoying little twerp."

Sarah paused, her hands on the desk, and leaned forward to her webcam.

"He's always a twerp," she replied. "Walker out."

Casey nodded. "Casey out."

Sarah sighed heavily. Suddenly, she pushed all of her organized papers onto the ground and slammed a fist into the wall.

"Damn you, Chuck," she hissed. She stood, seething, by the bathroom door, torn between calling Casey back to tell him to shut Chuck up and taking a scalding shower so that she could wash away the horrible guilt she felt clinging to her.

Luckily for Chuck, the shower won out. Sarah stripped down, flinging her clothes with a little more force than was necessary, and endured the hottest water the shower had to offer until her skin had turned an angry red. She didn't bother wiping away her eye makeup, which melted down her face. She didn't touch her bottle of shampoo, either, because lifting her arms felt like more trouble than it was worth.

When she was wrapped up in a bathrobe, she flipped on all the lights in the bathroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was a mess. A Fulcrum agent had gotten close enough to give her a nice cut above her left eye, and her bottom lip was swollen from a missed block. Her hair was damp and straggly, as she refused to comb it out. Who did she need to impress? Chuck wasn't here.

She blinked. _Wait. _She didn't need to impress Chuck, either.

But as she continued to stare at the glass, she knew she wasn't fooling anyone. Especially herself. Hell, even Casey had noticed.

Sarah slowly cleaned off her face with a cloth, taking care to wipe away the blood and eye liner. She put some ointment on her cut, combed her hair, and flossed and brushed her teeth. Although she still looked like a wreck, she felt slightly better as she went to her bed, curling up on her side. When she closed her eyes, however, all she could see were the still bodies of the Fulcrum agents she had killed a few hours earlier.

She sighed impatiently, willing them to go away. Nightmares had been a very routine challenge for her ever since becoming a spy. They had tortured her by giving her no rest during the early years of her occupation, but an answer had presented itself in the most unlikely form just two years earlier. It was always a fool-proof solution, but right now that option looked less appealing than someone holding her head underwater.

Calling Chuck would do the trick.

"No," she said resolutely to the still room. The only answer was the soft beep of her phone, telling her she had a voicemail.

"Not going to check it," she said. A few minutes passed, and the phone beeped again.

"Damn it," she swore, and crossed the room in a few steps to pick up her international phone. 33 missed calls. 12 new voicemails. All from Burbank, California. Caller: C. I. Bartowski.

Knowing she would regret it, Sarah dialed '1' and began to listen to the messages.

"Sarah, hey," began the first. "Look, uh…look, I know you left when we were on a - well, unpleasant note -"

She snorted. Unpleasant was an understatement.

"- I guess unpleasant is an understatement," he continued, and she rolled her eyes.

"I just want you to know that I will be waiting…waiting for you to call me. I need to apologize for the th-things I said to you. I was wrong. Please, just…call me. Bye."

"New message," the machine said clinically.

"Hey, it's me. Chuck. Again." There was a half-minute of silence. "Hope you're okay. C…call me."

"New message," the machine said again, but this time the following voice sounded different.

"Look, Sarah, please call me," he begged, "I feel horrible. I was wrong, I was very wrong. Just give me a few minutes. Just a few minutes, that's all."

She listened to all of the messages until she reached the last one. They were all similar - Chuck, his pleasant voice strained by anxiety and his language all words of pleading. The last one, however, was very different. It was so different, in fact, that Sarah had to clench her teeth and inhale deeply to keep from losing it.

"Sarah." He stopped. "Just come on home. I'll be waiting."

"End of new messages," came the cool voice again, as the phone slipped from her fingers and bounced on the mattress. Sarah bowed her head, massaging her temples with her fingertips.

It had been a stupid argument, admittedly. She had been in a bad mood when he began to ask her questions about where she was going and if Bryce would be there. The details of her mission weren't technically classified, but she had told him that they were, anyway, because it took more energy to explain all of it and to think about the fact that he actually cared if Bryce was there than to insist it was confidential. When Casey had filled Chuck in later he had angrily confronted her, which only made her shut down.

It made her sick to her stomach to think of how much Chuck was losing the charming naiveté she found so attractive. The missions, the guns, the lies were all beginning to take a toll on him. She could see it in his eyes when he looked at her - they were darker, a little more shadowed from lack of sleep and sights he never should have had to see. When he had confronted her, it had been the final straw. The old Chuck would have never shouted at her for lying about a mission, maybe about Bryce, but not the mission. The old Chuck - the one she wished so desperately would return, would have waited patiently, arms open, until she had finally broken down.

The last message sounded like the old Chuck. The one she knew was always there, but also the one that he was slowly but surely learning to lock away inside. She would do anything to keep that Chuck - her Chuck - smiling.

She began to throw things into her suitcase in a whirlwind. When it didn't all fit in her carry-on, she began to sort through the essentials, leaving the other things behind. Checking a bag would take more time.

After shimmying into a sweatshirt and jeans, she looked over the items in her shoulder bag: files, phone charger, tranquilizer pens, her inflexible glass knife hidden inside a radiation proof glasses case, a few spare clothes, her purse, a pair of shoes, her toothbrush…but no wallet. She dropped to her knees and desperately sought the small leather fold out from under the bed. As she went to throw it in, a few pictures and receipts fell out onto the floor.

The first was a receipt for her lunch yesterday - she quickly kicked that aside and bent to pick up the pictures, which both featured her standing with a different tall, dark-haired man. One was of her and Bryce in Lisbon. They were standing calmly, smiling on park sidewalk, both facing forward. Bryce had one arm around her shoulder, looking collected and mysterious, as he always had. Sarah stared at it for a moment before looking at the other picture, which was of her and Chuck on the couch at Ellie and Devon's apartment. Neither one of them were looking at the camera, which had been held by the ever-faithful Morgan. Chuck had both arms looped around her, pulling her close to him. She was laughing rather than smiling, her eyes slightly shut as Chuck's nose tickled her neck. He hadn't the slightest idea that Morgan was taking the picture; instead, he was looking at her as if she were the only thing in his world.

Looking at the picture only made her run rather than walk to the bus stop. It didn't matter that it was nearly midnight. It didn't matter that she really couldn't afford to fly this last-minute back to California without using the free first-class ticket she had ready for a few days from now. It didn't matter that she dropped the picture of her and Bryce as she was getting on the plane.

She paused to watch it flutter to the ground. It landed facedown in a puddle of oil and water about twenty feet below her on the steps up, but when she turned away to continue onto the plane, the constriction in her heart had nothing to do with losing it.

It had all to do with the fact that she was still hours away from seeing Chuck.

___

She wasn't surprised to find Chuck sitting up in his bed, reading a comic book at four in the morning. Smiling, she stealthily opened the Morgan Door and swung her legs over the sill, waiting for him to see her.

It didn't take long. She actually felt a twinge of pride that his senses had heightened. His eyes snapped up the moment her feet touched the floor, even though she knew she was being soundless, and then widened as he realized she was actually sitting there.

"Sarah," he breathed, and he was vaulting off his bed to her, the comic book tossed aside. He hesitated when he reached her, but in true Chuck fashion, held his arms open, always giving her the choice to hug him or not. If there was one thing Chuck Bartowski never failed at, it was being a gentleman.

Sarah looked at his forearms extended toward her. They were lanky, it was true, but she knew they were warm and protective. How many times had she been at this point? How many times had she just wanted to melt into him, face in his chest, wanted to stop wearing her armor for at least a moment or two? All of their hugs had been reserved. Sarah could kiss him in public most of the time without really needing to steel herself (she blamed it on all of the seduction the CIA required from her), but his embrace…that was a different story.

Chuck was looking at her, his eyebrows high in worry. He was wearing a thin white undershirt and a pair of navy blue boxers, his feet bare and his soft curly hair mussed in the warm breeze coming in through the open window. She knew he was reading her hesitation as anger.

"I'm so, so -" he began, but promptly stopped in surprise when she reached to wrap her arms completely around his torso. She settled her cheek against his chest and held there, unmoving.

Wordlessly, Chuck put his arms around her tightly. She felt him lessen the pressure of his arms after a moment, as if he were expecting her to pull away, as she always did. When she stayed, he was the one to pull back slightly, waiting for an explanation…or permission.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, locking gazes with him. They stared at one another for a moment before she watched his eyes soften. Slowly, he threaded a hand into her hair, behind her ear. She kept her face tipped upward, expecting him to kiss her, but was taken completely aback when he merely pulled her back into his chest, enveloping her completely, one hand holding her head, the other arm nearly lifting her up off the floor as he held her.

Sarah sighed, the warmth of his chest effectively melting her steel walls. Chuck said and did nothing for a few minutes until he let go of her only long enough to lead her to his bed. She slipped under the blankets and laughed softly as she watched him tape a piece of black paper to the wall to cover up the surveillance camera.

He slipped into bed next to her, turned off the lamp, and pulled her toward him. He wrapped one arm around her midriff and put the other one under her neck to support her head.

"Your arm will fall asleep," she whispered into his throat, and enjoyed how his chuckle rumbled against her nose.

"I don't care."

Sarah was asleep within minutes. Chuck made sure that she was breathing deeply and evenly before he withdrew his arm from around her to run a hand up and down the smooth skin of her arm. She shifted only slightly when he began to trace her face with the back of his hand.

"You came home," he whispered, brushing some stray blonde locks of hair out of her face. He smiled to himself as she frowned slightly and buried her head more deeply into his shoulder. It wasn't long before he lost feeling in his left arm, but he didn't dare to move it. His view of Sarah's face, so peaceful in sleep, was worth so much more than circulation.

___

_Time to review! Hop to it!_


	4. But They All Fall Down

_Hello, all! I am so, so grateful for the reviews and comments. They mean the world to me. I'm glad y'all are loving the moments I see in my head for Sarah and Chuck. Warning - this one is hard, but I didn't make it up. It's straight from Chuck Versus The Pink Slip, although I own absolutely nothing. _

_A/N - Okay, people, I'm a perfectionist. I posted this way too late last night, eager to get it out for everyone, but it was un-betaed. I just needed to re-work it a little bit. Made things a little more fluid, a little more clear. Pinky swear I won't post without reading over it again! _

_Some of you have expressed in your reviews that you've been angry and/or frustrated with the way this season has been going. I won't say that I disagree with you - Shaw kind of makes me want to bust him a new one, and Hannah is too giggly and saccharine-sweet for her own good. HOWEVER - every good writer knows that a story without conflict, whether inner or outer, is pointless. We're only three weeks to a month into the season three, and I still trust Fedak and Schwartz. They're good. They're very good. The fact that people are angry about Chuck and Sarah going through a traumatic emotional event is evidence enough - they've made us really care about these characters. We've just got to realize that Chuck's character is maturing - and so he should! He's too real of a person to be a flat character. The only flat characters should be the nameless bad guys that get shot up in every episode. _

_Furthermore, if I wanted to watch a show that constantly entertained me without any real meat to it - without getting me emotionally involved - I would watch re-runs of Friends or Seinfeld or some other show that was all comedy. Chuck is not all comedy. It's different than everything else on TV - it's a lot of things all rolled up into one, and that kind of a show requires a big storyline. We're in the beginning stages of getting that storyline rolling. For more info - from the actors' own mouths - search YouTube for "NBC Press Tour 2010: 'Chuck's' Yvonne Strahovski & Adam Baldwin."  
_

_Again, however, I really, really appreciate all of your feedback and opinions. Just giving everyone a little something to stew over. Love you guys._

_Enjoy! Again, you guys rock._

_Cheers,_

_Caroline_

**To Find My Way To You**

_But They All Fall Down_

_Well, I don't know_

_Which way to go_

_So I'll search the stars_

_Basking in the glow_

_But they all fall down_

_Without a sound_

_From the sky_

The stars in Prague were more visible than they were in Burbank, but to Chuck, it didn't matter in the slightest.

He was sitting on his government-supplied king-size bed when he happened to notice the difference in the sky. Normally, such a sight would have made him more appreciative of surviving all the danger he had been exposed to; here, however, wearing his government-supplied pajamas in a government-supplied room full of spy contraptions, he had never felt more isolated. He looked around the room, and then back out the window once more. Where was Sarah? Was she already finished with the escape route?

He sighed and leaned back on his pillows, hands behind his head. He was sore all over from training that day, especially where he had gotten smacked in the mouth. He was pretty sure a tooth was a little too loose due to the hit, but after all, as his trainer had said - he deserved it. He hadn't been paying attention. He had been completely distracted by the blonde hair he had seen flash by the window of the facility, looking way too familiar to be safe for his senses and heart.

"Focus, Bartowski," the trainer had growled, giving him a sharp rap. "You need to flash to beat me."

Chuck had looked to the ground, wincing as his mouth dripped blood. It wasn't the pain that bothered him; rather, it was the fact that the instant he had seen something that reminded him of Sarah, he felt his brain begin to buzz.

_Flash, flash…FLASH, you moron_, Chuck growled at himself, almost getting distracted again by the fact that his inner conscience sounded like Casey.

Two more hits, however, and Chuck was flat on his back, coughing as blood trickled into his throat from his mouth. His trainer had stopped then and leaned over him, shaking his head.

"Tomorrow, Agent Bartowski. Get your head screwed back on straight. This is pathetic."

Chuck had merely retched again, muffling his mouth into his government-supplied, sweat-soaked gray t-shirt. He sat up slowly as the facility emptied of all the analysts there to watch his - well, the Intersect 2.0's - growth. Only a few were there to monitor his body's functions.

"No - no one wants to make sure I'm not dying?" he muttered, mostly to himself, and was answered by the silence of the empty building. "Of course not."

Said clothing was now cast on the floor away from him. The black numbers on his t-shirt were facing up toward the ceiling. Looking at them, Chuck had never felt more like a faceless statistic. 612-09809*, it said. His agent identity. The asterisk was the only thing that differed from the identities Sarah and Casey had. It denoted him as the Intersect.

_Or, a freak with a computer in his head_, he thought bitterly, looking back out the window. He used to have a vain pride about being one of the only people in the world whose brain could handle all of the encoded images, but that vanity was shrinking every day. He was beginning to believe that he was only good for Intersect 1.0, rather than the current version he had uploaded.

He clenched his jaw and drummed his knuckles on the hardback training manual sitting next to him. It was just like Bryce had told their old professor at Stanford - he had too much heart. He wouldn't survive if he couldn't control when and where to flash. He knew it.

Worse, he was pretty sure that the CIA and NSA were beginning to figure it out.

_And when they do_, he thought, _Sarah will be the only one left for me_. Going home, to face Ellie, Awesome, Morgan, the Buy More, and his old, directionless life sounded unbearable without her there. A future with Sarah was all he had left.

Three days remained before he went to meet her at the train station, to begin a life with her. A quiet life. A simple life. All he had ever wanted, with the most perfect woman he could have ever dreamed of. It didn't matter to him that they would have new names, new lives, fabricated pasts. They would be alone and safe.

He was smiling, his eyes closed, when the thought occurred to him.

_What about everyone else?_

He furrowed his brow, eyes still closed.

_What about Ellie?_

Chuck groaned and rolled over so that his face was in his pillow. "Isn't it too late for this?" he said to no one, but his mind would not stop. In fact, the harder he tried to stop the barrage of thoughts and images in his brain, the more he felt himself slipping into a flash - a legitimate flash - he was not prepared for.

He saw Ellie wearing black, crying in a cemetery, being held up by a very serious Devon in a suit. He saw the city of New York on the news, hit by a new range of terrorist attacks. He saw Morgan sitting on the sill of the Morgan Door, his hands clutched in his hair. He saw the assassination of a high-level clearance politician named Stevens, which was intended for the president, but had gone off-mark. Stevens had a wife and three young daughters, all under the age of seven. They all had red curly hair and freckles. He saw Casey tailing a brown van, his face more mask-like than usual, a file on the seat next to him with the numbers 118-52001 and 612-09809* on the cover. He saw Sarah being held at gunpoint, her beautiful blonde hair dyed brown, a ring on her left-hand ring finger. The next image, however, pushed him over the edge.

Sarah. Bleeding and unnaturally still. A man in a black mask tossing her over a wooden pier.

"_NO_!" he bellowed, sitting up in bed, panting in panic. "No, no, no, no, no, absolutely not, no…"

He clenched his teeth together. His father had said that the Intersect had the ability to flash on things that were not necessarily uploaded into it (such as the door code he had flashed on inside R.I.) - but things that hadn't happened yet? It was impossible.

"Impossible," he breathed, trying to clear his head. _Get it under control, Bartowski_. "I don't... That can't - it won't happen."

Chuck knew, however, that whether it would happen or not wasn't important anymore. Whether a politician named Stevens would be killed, whether New York would come under attack, and whether or not his fake funeral would send Ellie into depression didn't matter in the slightest.

His decision was made for him, and he hated it.

How could he just turn his back on Ellie? She couldn't stand - and certainly didn't deserve - another person walking out of her life. Sure, she would have Devon, but - Chuck shook his head, trying to quash his guilty conscience. And what about Morgan? And the fact that countless people would get hurt without him being able to access the information in his head? He couldn't do it.

He couldn't stand to leave their safety up to a government that lost all of its intelligence on a lovesick, emotional runaway, no matter how hard it was for him to be the agent he should be.

He wouldn't be able to bear leaving the world behind to its fate - he would loathe himself. But he also couldn't bear rejecting Sarah and risk losing her forever - he would loathe himself for that, too. _Damned if I do, damned if I don't..._

Chuck stood and crossed the room to put his head out into the night air. It was becoming increasingly difficult to banish the image of Sarah's lifeless body being dropped into the dark water below.

_Oh, Sarah…_

He squeezed his eyes shut in anguish. It was Sarah who was going to be hurt the most through all of this. She was acting way out of her character - trusting him, leaving everything behind at the chance to have a life with him. _At least she would still be breathing_, said some feebly positive corner of his conscience, and he was immediately brought back to the time when he had had to embarrass Morgan in front of Anna and the Triad.

"At least he's still breathing," Sarah had told him, giving him a sympathetic look. The look on Morgan's face had made him angry at her for saying it, although she had been right.

"What happens when it's you I have to hurt, Sarah?" he said softly, looking up at the stars. "Does it sound like that coming from me when I have to do the same thing to you?"

He clenched his fists by his sides, staring out at the night. The stars were bright, mocking him.

___

She looked breathtaking, standing there by the train. Her golden hair fell in waves around her shoulders, her gray-blue eyes brilliant in the foggy, dissipated light of the station. When she turned and saw him, he mustered up the best smile he could, but he was afraid it looked more like a grimace.

The walk toward her seemed like the longest walk he had ever taken, and yet, it was too soon when he was standing next to her. How could he do this? How could he say this to her? He had to lie. He couldn't tell her that he loved her, and that that was the reason he wasn't coming with her. It was too sudden. Especially here. Especially when she was this vulnerable.

His heart constricted when she smiled and handed him a ticket and a new passport book.

"Here is your ticket and your new passport. Your name is Hector Calderon."

_Think, Chuck_. "Sarah, wait -"

"We'll have plenty of time to talk on the train; right now we have to act fast," she continued as if he hadn't said anything. "Trust me, Chuck…it's all going to work out fine."

How many times had she asked him to trust her? Countless, it must have been. How to tell her that he did - that he trusted her implicitly? How to say what he needed to say - without breaking her heart?

He couldn't see a way around it.

When she leaned forward and took his face in her hands to kiss him, he almost forgot where he was and what he had to do. His arms itched to draw her in nearer to him, to show her, at least, if he couldn't tell her, how much he loved her. Her lips were soft and insistent as she pressed herself up against him, waiting for him to reciprocate. Her kiss was different than all the other times she had kissed him - reserved, and yet bold, confident. The other kisses had been different: the kiss right before the 'bomb' went off had been desperate, the kiss when they woke up in the Barstow hotel room had been passionate, exultant. After one more second, he was almost gone, almost ready to pick her up and carry her onto the train himself.

And then - the image. The image of her being held at gunpoint, dark-haired, face shadowed, a ring on her finger. Not reacting, because she loved him. Falling into the water -

He stopped kissing her. She noticed, and drew back from him. When he dared to open his eyes, her face was written over with confusion and the beginnings of her old defenses. He could almost watch them growing in her mind, from the lines that wrinkled around her mouth to the way she narrowed her eyes.

"Um…that's not the kiss I was expecting," she said.

_Lie, Chuck. Keep her safe. Keep everyone safe._

"Sarah, there's an entire facility here - dedicated and designed to turning me into Intersect 2.0. I mean, think about it. Think about that - me, a real spy! You know, living a life of adventure and doing things that really matter."

_It's bull shit, Sarah, all of it. Every single word. Don't believe me. Please see what I'm trying to say. Please understand.  
_

Sarah's face was incredulous.

"It's not that simple. You don't know who you're working for - it's complicated, nothing is real!" She reached for his hand, and when her soft skin touched his, he nearly broke.

"This - this is simple. This is a real life," she added meaningfully, as he looked down to see her stroking his hand with her thumb. When he looked back up at her, her eyes were beginning to glass over.

_You can't cry. You can't do that to me right now, because I can't fix this one. This is the only way I know how.  
_

"We have to go, Chuck, this is it," she said, pleading with him. He looked to see the conductor closing the door of the train. "Are you coming?"

Her face was a picture of complete openness. Openness he had worked and waited for, for so long. He was facing years - days and nights of danger and questions and hope that she would one day trust him to really know her - and all of that was about to be placed back in her hand, along with the ticket. All trust destroyed, in one single moment.

_You don't understand how much I want to._

"I can't."

_You don't understand how much I love you._

"I'm sorry."

___

_I know it's sad, but don't worry - good, happy vignettes are in the works! Please review!_


	5. My Heart Will Keep The Time

_Hello, all! Long time, no see - I know, it's my fault. I know I promised y'all a happier vignette than the last one - which this is - but please be assured that the fluffy, make-you-want-to-hug-your-loved-ones-tight vignettes are still in the works. Hang on!_

_This vignette only makes sense if you've been watching Chuck. I hope you have. If you haven't, start again tonight! 8p eastern time, 7p central. I'm not able to watch it live because I have class on Monday nights, but I intend to leave my TV on in my apartment so that NBC clocks my viewing in their ratings. _

_**In case you haven't heard, NBC will be voting in a couple months on whether or not to keep Chuck based SOLELY on TV viewing audience numbers. Subway won't work this time. Letters to the network won't work this time. ONLY WATCHING CHUCK LIVE, FROM START TO FINISH, WITHOUT CHANGING THE CHANNEL, WILL WORK!**_

_Spread the word, nerds. Let's save our favorite show, yeah? _

_Oh, and, of course…I don't own anything recognizable. I actually owe a lot of money for a college education that probably won't get me a job in this economy once I graduate in a few weeks. But that's beside the point…_

**To Find My Way To You**

_My Heart Will Keep The Time_

_Well, I still can't find_

_The words to say_

_But you, my love_

_Love me anyway_

_So just go to sleep_

_And my heart will keep_

_The time_

"Sa…rah?"

She was instantly alert, sitting up in bed and clutching the gun underneath her pillow. Her heart pounded irregularly as she crept to the door, her sweaty nightgown clinging to her frame, the result of another nightmarish night. They were getting worse, and although she knew that was a direct correlation of Chuck's growth as a spy, she would never admit it to anyone. Especially herself. Sleeping alone in her apartment without anyone to talk to was making the patterned walls look foreign again, as if she hadn't been living there for some time.

"Sar…" the voice trailed off, and then was followed by a few disjointed knocks. She growled angrily under her breath as she recognized the voice and opened the door.

Chuck was standing there, looking ragged. His chin and cheeks were covered with a stubbly shadow and his eyes were ringed with dark blue circles. He was thinner, a little paler, and had earned a new cut on his forehead, near his hairline, from a recent knife fight. What disgusted Sarah the most, however, was the fact that he was swaying slightly, his gaze unfocused.

"Are you _drunk_, Bartowski?" she hissed, grabbing him by the collar and dragging him inside the door.

"I…" muttered Chuck, leaning against the wall as she reached around the corner to turn on the bathroom light. She crossed her arms and fixed him with a pointed glare. He squeezed his eyes shut before looking at her again.

"Yes. I am," he said, wagging a finger at her. "An' you know why?"

She sighed again. "Why."

"'Cause I…" he took a deep breath. "Am a lying, bachh-stabbing…bastard."

Sarah pursed her lips, thinking.

"Sit," she said brusquely, pushing him toward the bed, and then went back into the bathroom. She watched him flop backwards onto the bed, one hand over his eyes, as she rummaged around in her medicine cabinet for the aspirin. Once she had found it, she slipped on her bathrobe, filled a glass with some tap water, and then walked back out to sit next to him on the bed. He was so quiet that Sarah thought he had passed out.

"Di' you ever hurt your fam'ly?" he slurred suddenly. He didn't wait for her to answer. "Ellie's mad. So's Awesome, 'cuz he wants t' tell Ellie. An' Morgan knowing is a good thing, bu' now I'm jus' worried he'll get hurt. I'm worried all of them will get hurt - because of me." Chuck was quiet for a moment, blinking back thick, alcohol-enhanced tears. "An' Hannah…she…she thinks I'm not a nice guy. She told me when I broke up with her."

Chuck gestured wildly and emphatically, nearly mistakenly hitting her in the chin. "I've always been a nice guy, Sarah."

Sarah didn't say anything. She and Casey had been waiting for this to happen. Chuck had been spiraling downward ever since he had burned his first asset. It had been masked, they knew, by Hannah - Sarah gritted her teeth as the petite brunette's face filled her mind for a moment - but it had shown itself in every way they knew it would, despite Chuck's general cheerful demeanor. They knew it was inevitable that he would go through all the phases of the mourning process that all spies had to endure. Denial, anger, hopelessness, and then either acceptance or complete rejection. In training it was called the Fan Point - when the shit finally hit the fan, spies in training either opted out or decided they had ruined their lives beyond repair and stuck it out.

Sarah hated it. Her own Point had been a little easier, having nothing to mourn other than a deadbeat conman for a father, and she had until recently erroneously assumed that Casey's hadn't been too hard, either. Casey's skeletons, however, only further proved to her that every spy, no matter who they were, gave up on something they loved when they passed their Point. Passing the Fan Point for her had felt like what she imagined young horses felt like once they were broken - empowered, but obedient. Given honor and respect, yet horribly, horribly submissive. There was no independence for The Land of The Free's finest.

Chuck Bartowski had lost much and was still able to love more than anyone she had ever known. It was ironic that such a man had to make the same choices she did at a young age. She could see them in her mind's eye, side by side - herself, a reluctant high school graduate armed with no family, no moral upbringing, no future, no real name, a lot of rage, and a box of stolen cash. And beside her, Chuck - abandoned, lacking in self-confidence, bewildered, and yet still loyal, still bright-eyed, still handing out pieces of his heart of gold without reservation. Two utterly different people, walking the same path.

The irony was palpable, and she loathed it.

"Now tha's ironic," Chuck laughed, lurching forward suddenly. Sarah put a cautionary hand on his chest, wondering if she had been speaking aloud. When he continued, however, she knew she hadn't.

"Iss ironic, tha's all there is to it!" he laughed louder, slapping his knee. "I jus' kep' gettin' the short end of the stick all my life, and now, now! Now, when I think I fin'lly got it together, I go and piss everyone off."

Sarah replaced her cautionary hand, this time on his upper back. She moved it in small circles, saying nothing,. Chuck took no notice of this as he spoke from his stream of consciousness.

"I never thought I would end up like Dad," he muttered, leaning forward and putting his head in his hands. Sarah swallowed the rising lump in her throat.

"I jus'…iss not that he left us. He was never really there, y'know? I mean, I know now why he lef', but Ellie…she never will." He looked up at her, still slumped over. "Tha's almost worse than him leaving, Ellie not knowing. Mom left, an' it was bad, but El an' me were so young that we were okay. Well, I was okay after awhile, but I think Ellie never really has been. She ran away when Dad left." He paused again and sat up straight, placing his palms on his knees. Sarah could no longer swallow the lump in her throat - it was stuck in place.

"She was gone when I got home. I ate Ramen Noodles for dinner that night, 'cuz I didn't know how to cook anything else. An' then I had to walk to school in the morning by myself 'cuz she was still gone. It took me an hour to get there, an' when I did, the police were there, asking me if I had seen her. They thought I had hurt her or something…or that Dad had hurt both of us an' I was covering for him." He stopped again. "I 'member sitting in the chair in the office, wondering if they were gonna put me in jail. An' I promised myself I wouldn' let anything happen to her if she came home. And she did."

He shook his head, as if she weren't there. "She came home. An' she promised me she would never leave me or hurt me. We took care of each other. 'Til now. An' now I'm hurting her jus' like everyone else has. Devon's got it right - they should geddout of th' country. They should get away from me."

Sarah moved so that she was behind Chuck. He couldn't be allowed to see the way his pain was being played out on her face, because it would only distract him. She scratched his back comfortingly, knowing that the more he talked, the easier the Point would be for him.

"Sarah?" he asked, and she was relieved he didn't look around at her face. "Am I a bad brother?"

Sarah maintained her silence, but continued to move her fingernails up and down his upper back. He sighed heavily, making his shoulder blades poke out a bit.

"I am. I'm a shitty brother. An' a really bad friend." What he said next, however, made chills creep up Sarah's spine. "But I'm a hell of a liar. Yeah…a really good liar."

They sat in silence for a few minutes before he turned around to face her. She had regained her composure, but when she saw how tired he was, how deep his sorrow was going, she felt herself being pushed back to the brink of empathetic pain. It became especially hard when his eyes - golden-brown, with just a touch of green, like his sister's - fixed themselves on hers, full of desperation. She knew what he was feeling - at least a little bit. And if she could have, she would have spared him all of it. Gladly.

"Sarah," he whispered, shoulders slumped. "I don' wanna be a spy. I can' -" he shook his head slightly, as if to clear it, and then slumped down to lean it on her shoulder. She shut her eyes for a split second, relishing the weight and warmth of it. "I can - _not _hurt anyone else."

She wrapped an arm around his lanky frame, taking in the surreal situation. _It isn't supposed to happen like this_, she thought. _These roles are supposed to be reversed._

"Chuck," she said softly into his curls, "if you don't want to be a spy anymore, you can still get out. You haven't finished your training. If you take an oath of secrecy, the CIA will discharge you before you are licensed. You don't have to do this."

Chuck groaned. "Bu' then you'll leave me."

Shocked, her fingers curled around his shoulder even more tightly. "What did you say?"

He looked up at her, his gaze a bit more focused than when he had walked in. "You're gonna leave if you don' have to train me anymore. Beckman'll send you away, like she was going to b'fore. An' then you'll be with Shaw. An' not with me." He sat up, withdrawing from her so that he could see her clearly. She felt as though the apartment brochures she had picked up in DC were burning a hole through the drawer of her bedside table.

"I…I love you, Sarah," he said, more clearly than he had said anything else. He looked much more sober as he waited for her to react.

"I know," she said softly. She didn't move as he leaned in toward her face, his whiskey-tainted breath swirling around her. Although his lips were slightly chapped, their touch on her own was gloriously familiar. It was clear that a couple of days of apartment-hunting and being between the sheets with Daniel had done nothing to dim her reaction to Chuck's kiss. It made her hands tingle, made her breath much shorter than a normal kiss ought to, made her feet stick to the floor while the room spun. Everything in her wanted to lean back onto the bed and pull him down with her. She resisted, however, knowing that the Chuck she knew and loved would never have done that to her if she were in the condition he was currently in.

He drew back after a moment, his eyes still closed. When he opened them, it was plain that he had felt her detachment.

"We'll never be together, will we?"

She merely looked at him, torn between two answers. It was when he stood to leave, however, that she finally teetered over the precipice she had been so perilously perched on.

"I hope so."

He stopped at the door, one hand nearly touching the doorknob. "What?" he said in a monotone voice.

Sarah bit down on her lower lip, not daring to utter the answer again. She didn't have the nerve.

Chuck, however, seemed to have sobered up enough to find that thread of self-respect she knew he possessed deep inside. He was still a bit unsteady on his feet, but his anger seemed to be enough to lend lucidity to his speech. She was nervous as he strode back over to her, hands tense at his sides.

"Why did you tell _Shaw_ your real name?" The question was hard, biting.

Silence.

"Why didn't you tell _me_?"

She bit down harder, wondering when the metallic flavor of blood would hit the tip of her cowardly tongue.

"Don't you know _I _love you, Sarah? Don't you know how much _I_ want to know you?"

She trained her gray-blue eyes on his feet, trying not to listen to his soul-penetrating questions. They were in black leather CIA-issue shoes instead of his Chuck Taylors. She didn't like them.

"So is this it, Sarah? You ride off into the sunset with Shaw? Should I expect a wedding announcement in a few years for _Sam_ and Daniel Shaw?"

The moment he uttered her real name, her carefully controlled façade cracked. She stood and faced him, angry to her core.

"You know what, Chuck? This is not supposed to be about me. You show up at _my_ apartment in the middle of the night, drunk off your ass, and expect me to listen to you unload and then answer all of _your_ questions, like you have a _right_ to ask them," she snarled.

"If you didn't want me to unload, you shouldn't have answered the door," he countered. "No one is forcing you to love me, Sarah -"

"_You_ are!" she snapped, her cheeks reddening. "You pushed and begged and pleaded until I finally broke enough to give up on my _entire_ life and run away with you. And then - _only_ then! - did you decide that being the Intersect was more important to you than I was. You made your choice then, and now you have to make another one." Acid dripped off of her words.

"Which brings us back to the matter at hand, _Agent _Bartowski. Frankly, I'm fed up with your 'woe is me' act. You aren't the only one who has had to give up on dreams and family and love to become a spy. Everyone does. Everyone, no matter how screwed up their life was before they become an official agent for the government.

"And I let you into my room tonight because I wanted to help you either pass that point or support your decision to forego it. You don't have to be a spy. No one is forcing you to lie to and hurt your friends and family. No one is forcing you to accept Beckman's final exam tomorrow. _No one is forcing you to do anything_," she gasped, fighting back the traitorous tears she knew were beginning to form.

Chuck was still staring at her in shock. Never had he heard her make such a long speech.

"But you've been forcing your way into my life from the moment I met you," she whispered miserably, her voice thick with emotion. "I finally gave in and you didn't want me. So what was I supposed to do?"

"Confide in someone who understands you," he whispered back, remembering her look of relief when she kissed Shaw after telling him her real name. It had been the same expression she had worn when he had promised to run away with her in Castle, the night he had uploaded the new Intersect. It was a look of vulnerability - a look she now wore only for Shaw.

It was a look she was wearing now, but with much pain.

She exhaled, scrubbing her right cheek with the palm of her hand.

"You've got two choices here," she said hoarsely. "You become a spy or you don't. Both of those choices have consequences, good and bad. You either deal with knife wounds or the regret of quitting something you could have been great at."

She sat back down on the bed, utterly exhausted.

"Do either of those choices include you?"

It was a quiet question, full of trepidation and foolish hope.

"I don't know," was her quiet reply.

"I hope so."

Sarah listened to Chuck walk to the door. He opened it, stopped, and then spoke in her general direction.

"I know Carina gave you the flash drive from the vault. I want you to know that I meant everything I said on it. I never intended to hurt you. I never meant to hurt anybody…" he trailed off thoughtfully.

Sarah finally looked up to see him standing in the doorway, a lanky silhouette with a mop of curly hair.

"What I said on that video will never change, no matter how stupid I am or how far apart we end up."

Sarah spent the rest of the night watching the clock on her nightstand, clutching a damp, tear-stained pillow to her chest. 1:00 AM…was Chuck sleeping, or was he wide awake, like her?…2:00 AM…would she make a different choice, if she were in Chuck's place?…3:00 AM…did she love Daniel?…4:00 AM…was she strong enough - or weak enough - to let Chuck in again?

* * *

Sarah and Chuck had matching dark circles under their eyes the next morning. Shaw brought the usual carrier full of cups - his Grande drip, Sarah's Americano, Chuck's latte. The carrier looked a bit off, however, without Casey's usual Venti black coffee. General Beckman seemed to notice this as she watched them settling down at the table for their meeting, because her gaze lingered sadly on it for a bit too long.

"Good morning, team. I trust all of you had a restful night."

Sarah and Chuck dared not look at the screen or at each other. Neither Beckman nor Shaw noticed this.

"Mr. Bartowski, tonight is your final exam. Are you ready?"

Sarah wasn't surprised when he confirmed that he was. _Point passed_, said a resigned voice in her head. _Congratulations, Agent Bartowski._

She was surprised, however, when her private briefing was over, to find a note on the bottom of her Castle locker. She surreptitiously made sure Daniel was in the other room as she unfolded it. What she read there made her heart pound embarrassingly.

_I know I've been a jerk, but I promise I'll always be that guy who fixed your phone. Stick with me? _

_C._

* * *

Chuck was actually on a legitimate off-site install after the meeting when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He drew it out to see Sarah's stunning smile on the screen and the phrase '_1 New Message' _blinking up at him innocently.

His tense face broke out into a small, grateful smile as he read it.

_I know I've been unfair, but I promise I'll always be the handler who is a little too protective. Keep pushing? S._

* * *

_Hey everyone - a bit short, but I've been writing and re-writing this chapter for awhile now. I want my stories to fit into the canon, and it's been difficult to find a spot to fit this into. I think this works, but I'm not entirely happy with it. Let me know what you think!_


	6. I Would Give Up

_Hello, folks! BE WARNED: this chapter contains a classy sex scene. Not graphic, but it's there. If that sort of thing offends you, you may want to skip this one._

_Everyone else - enjoy! I'm pretty happy with this piece. Let me know if you like it!_

_Cheers,_

_Caroline_

**To Find My Way To You**

_I Would Give Up_

_And, oh, love, when you say to me_

_That my kiss is like the breath you breathe_

_I would give up on a thousand dreams_

_Just to find my way to you_

The Eiffel Tower was nowhere near as impressive as Chuck had made it out to be in his mind. After all his years of wanting to climb the stupid thing, to maybe even fly a paper airplane off the top, he was looking up at it with a definite sense of anticlimax.

He grimaced in disappointment, his warm brown eyes narrowed behind the pair of Oakley's Bryce had left for him so long ago. He had, at first, refused to wear them, afraid that they would periodically be uploaded with more updates to the Intersect. Now, however, he was the only Intersect 2.0 agent and it didn't matter whether they were or not. Chuck still expected, sometimes, to be taken aback by flashing images when he put them on, but the glasses had remained as dormant as Bryce - dead, gone, and never coming back.

Chuck tried to block out his regret of never making peace with Bryce as he turned away from the Tower. The day was brilliantly sunny and he was determined to at least see or do something interesting while he was in Paris for the weekend.

As he walked along the boulevard, he reflexively took note of everyone around him. There was a small girl skipping along in front of him, her hand clasped by a tall, blond-haired man who must have been her father. She was so small that it seemed like he was her only anchor to the earth; if he let go, she may have just flown up into the sky, giggling delightedly.

The little girl was blonde, too. Her be-ribboned ponytail bounced as she went along. "Sarah!" said her father when she tried to skip ahead of him. He went on to kneel down and reprimand her gently in French as Chuck passed them, a familiar twinge in the pit of his stomach as he heard the name.

He noticed her everywhere. It never seemed to stop - the blue sky, the frozen yogurt parlor on the corner, her perfume on another woman walking by on the sidewalk. Chuck was usually able to shove the ensuing lump in his throat down into his diaphragm, where it manifested itself as very faint butterflies until the next reminder. Then he would repeat the action - again, and again, and again, until he would lie in bed at night and see the reminders flash through his mind's eye before he fell asleep.

Everything was Sarah. Everything was a lack of her. And he hated it.

Chuck swallowed, hard, and then decided to head back to his hotel for lunch. There was a café on the bottom floor with a sunny deck he liked the looks of. Although he was not on a mission in Paris, Beckman had made it clear that his weekend voyeur from his base in Rome only meant that they would be sending his mission briefings to his hotel. rather than his home. There was no real rest for spies.

"You've been given leave for a few days so that you can rest," she had explained to him sternly the day before. Chuck had been expecting it - he had been working non-stop for several weeks, and it was beginning to take a toll on his ability to flash. After two years of being in Rome, Beckman had come to understand that Agent Charles Carmichael worked hard - harder than most of her agents, although she would never tell him that - but he also needed recuperation time every two months or so in order to be in top working condition. Sometimes he would go home to see his family and friends, sometimes he took to exploring Europe, and sometimes he simply stayed in bed at his villa, watching movies and sleeping. Never, however, did his mind completely rest. He was always, always thinking of Sarah, hoping to hear something from her, hoping Beckman would let something slip about her work with Shaw in Washington.

Beckman never did. Of course, that was one reason why she was the general. The woman never did anything she wasn't supposed to do.

Chuck sighed as he sat down at a small table outside the café. Eating alone. Again. He momentarily thought about wandering around until he found a pretty girl to invite to lunch with him, but past endeavors of the same had only ended up making him feel more lonely than before. Some had even offered (after dinner dates) to spend the night in his villa. He had only allowed this once, and had promptly regretted it afterward. Chuck Bartowski was not a one-night stand man, even if he had a different name and was living a millionaire's life in Rome. He had even tried dating a few girls, but none - of course - were the girl he really wanted in his life. They were all Hannahs to him - sweet, beautiful, intelligent - but he couldn't lie to them any more than he could lie to himself.

"_Bonjour, monsieur," _said a voice above him.

Chuck froze. He stopped breathing, stopped blinking. He couldn't even move his head enough to look at the waitress who was politely standing next to his table, waiting to take his drink order.

Because he knew that voice. He would know that voice anywhere. The cool sound of it slipped down into his heart, sending it into a frantic rhythm.

"_Ah, monsieur?" _asked Sarah again. She hadn't recognized his face yet, as he was still keeping it angled toward his menu. He took the deepest breath he could before he looked up at her. He stared at her for a second - she was still looking at him politely. Chuck gritted his teeth again and reached to push his sunglasses up on his very short, curl-less hair.

"_Bonjour," _he managed to very softly say.

Sarah's eyes widened in pure shock. She froze, her pen on paper, staring at him as if she could not believe it was really him sitting there.

She looked absolutely lovely. _But when doesn't she? _he thought ruefully, taking in her softly curling hair, her gray-blue eyes framed in long lashes, her crisp, collared white shirt tucked into her khaki skirt. She wore a light pink apron around her waist and a sparkling diamond ring on her left hand. When Chuck saw it, his entire body seemed to go numb.

"_Parlez-vous anglais, mademoiselle?" _he asked, in case she was being watched.

"_Oui," _she faintly said, her cheeks coloring slightly. "What would you like to drink?" she continued, her voice higher than its normal pitch, although she retained the French accent he knew was fake.

"Water would be fine, Isobel," he murmured, after a quick glance at the nametag on her chest. She nodded mutely and walked away unsteadily, nearly tripping over a potted plant near the entrance of the kitchen.

Chuck grabbed his napkin and rummaged around in his backpack for a pen. Taking one out, he scribbled two short sentences, his hand trembling so much that his penmanship was almost unreadable: _Are you undercover? Are you in danger?_

When she brought him a glass of water, he deftly slipped it into the front pocket of her apron without saying anything. Sarah didn't see the action, but she felt the slight brush of his hand.

Chuck barely registered what he ordered, and didn't taste it when he was hastily eating it. He was desperate to get a reply from her. He couldn't let her slip away without speaking to her for at least a few minutes. He couldn't stomach the thought.

When she finally returned to his table with the check, he noticed that there was a slip of receipt paper behind the one with his charge on it. _Yes. No. _it read in small, neat cursive. He exhaled as his eyes took it in. Leave it to Sarah to be as short as possible.

He bit his lip, thinking hard, and then wrote back: _Hotel Beaumarchais 8892. 8p. _He looked at his words for a moment before writing _Please, S. _underneath it.

"_Merci beaucoup, monsieur. Passez une bonne journèe," _she said politely as she returned to the table to retrieve his money. There was nothing about her person that would give away that she knew him. Chuck's throat constricted as he noticed this, but was able to breathe again when she let her fingers linger a bit too long on his hand as she took the little leather book.

"_Au revoir," _he whispered after her retreating form.

Surely - _surely _- she couldn't ignore him. Surely she would come.

But as he watched her flit around the different tables, laughing and talking with the other customers, he felt a twinge of unease. _What if she doesn't?_

_What if the ring on her finger is real? _

_What if Shaw gave it to her?_

_What if I never see her again?_

* * *

Sarah did not come at 8:00 that night.

She didn't come at 8:30, either.

When the clock on Chuck's nightstand was edging nearer to 9:00, he was sitting on the end of his large, empty king-sized bed, feeling completely dejected. He was never going to see her again. He should have known. Sarah was a professional spy - one of the CIA's best. She had not sought him out in D.C. or in Rome - why would she start disobeying orders now?

Chuck nearly fell off the bed when there was a small tapping sound at his door. Hardly daring to believe it was her, he approached the door carefully, one hand on the knife tucked into his waistband. When he saw her tell-tale blonde hair on the other side, however, he fumbled to unlock it as quickly as he could.

She slipped inside without saying anything. Chuck stood back as she closed the door, locked it, and then turned around slowly to face him. She was dressed rather scantily in a low-cut, short black dress and bright red lipstick. Chuck tried to keep his eyes from traveling down her long legs, which were clad in very fine hosiery, and realized that she must have dressed that way to avert attention. _The easiest way for a lone woman to get into a hotel is to dress like a prostitute_, she had told him long ago, when she was still his handler and he was still her defenseless asset. She must have put that same theory to work tonight.

They stood there, staring at one another awkwardly.

"Hi," she said softly, breaking the silence.

"Hey," he replied, not sure of what to do next. After a thoughtful moment, however, he decided to do what he would have done years ago, in his room in Burbank.

Chuck held his arms open, palms up. He gulped hard, wondering if she would spurn him.

Sarah blinked several times, as if in surprise. She stepped forward, in a daze, and slowly, tentatively, moved into his embrace. He hesitantly closed his arms around her slender torso, inwardly marveling at how he could have forgotten how perfectly she fit against him. When she didn't pull away, he dared to put one of his hands against her head, so that she knew it was okay to lean it against his shoulder. This she did, and when Chuck caught her small sigh of contentment, he exhaled too, smiling. He hadn't realized he was holding his breath.

When they finally pulled apart, Sarah was wearing a smile that matched his own.

"I can't believe you're here," she said breathlessly. "Are you undercover?"

"On leave for the weekend," he replied. "I get some time off about every two months."

"So, Rome is…you like it?" she asked hesitantly, and he could tell she really wanted to ask something else.

"It's…thrilling. I guess that's how I would describe it." _Thrilling, Chuck? Really?_

Chuck shook his head, his smile fading slightly. He had just noticed that she wasn't wearing her ring.

"Where's your ring?"

She frowned in confusion.

"What ring?"

He took her left hand, skin tingling wherever they touched. He rubbed his thumb on her ring finger knuckle.

"You had a diamond ring on earlier," he said quietly. Realization dawned on her face.

"Oh, it's…part of my cover," she replied, not looking at him.

"And what is your cover?"

"I can't tell you that, Chuck," Sarah said. She looked at him sympathetically.

He stared at her. She exhaled sharply through her nose in consternation.

"My cover is Isobel Lefevre, fiancée of Roland Desmarais," Sarah said slowly. "He owns the café. We think he is using it as a cover operation for the Ring."

"We?"

Sarah pursed her lips. "Shaw and I."

Chuck turned away from her, hands in his pockets. "Ah. You and Shaw. So you're still partners?"

"Yes, we are."

He was silent as he walked across the room.

"Chuck, we aren't…together," Sarah said feebly.

He didn't say anything.

"Is that all you're going to do?" she snapped finally, crossing her arms. "Summon me here while I am on assignment and refuse to talk to me because of my _career_ partner?"

"Is that the only kind of partner he is?"

"I just told you that we _aren't together_!" Sarah cried out, fixing him with an exasperated look. "It - we - we didn't work out."

"But you're engaged," Chuck growled. Sarah swallowed her next retort. She clenched her jaw and her nostrils slightly flared in irritation.

"Isobel Lefevre is engaged. Not me."

"Is Isobel Lefevre sleeping with her fiancé?"

Her glare was murderous.

"Even if she was, why should it matter to you?"

"Because I love you, Sarah Walker. I always have. I have been in love with you, every day, since I got carted off to Washington. And before that."

Sarah was immovable. "It was your decision to complete that mission and go trekking across the world as the CIA's new badass."

"You knew exactly where I was," he retorted.

"And what should I have done, exactly, _Agent Carmichael_? Come find you in Rome and beg you to give up on your new career? Disobey my orders and go off the grid _again_? So you could just reject me - _again_?"

Chuck winced visibly as she brought up his mistake in Prague. If she only knew the amount of times he had rewound that scene in his head…the amount of times he had made a different decision, gone against his better judgment, followed his heart…

"I didn't want to reject you," he whispered. She scoffed.

"You meant it. You meant it so much, you killed a man to become a spy. You shot him," she mumbled, gray-blue eyes full of pain and disappointment. Chuck watched her face crumple. "You promised me you'd always…be that guy."

She swallowed. "You lied to me, Chuck."

Chuck leaned his head against the wall, his face turned toward the ceiling. He had no words. Nothing he could say - even his explanation, forbidden though he was to give it by Casey - would make up for what he had done.

And so he did the only thing left to do. He crossed the room, tenderly took her face in his hands, and pressed his lips to hers.

If the world kept going outside, neither one of them noticed. Furious though Sarah was, the sensation of Chuck's mouth on her own quickly melted her anger away. She forgot the questions she had, the two year's worth of accusations she had piled up in her mind, and was overtaken by the feeling of Chuck's lips as they blazed a surprisingly self-confident trail to the sensitive spot underneath her earlobe. The one he had found years before - the one that only he knew about, as no other man had ever discovered it. As he caressed it, she found her knees giving way.

"Sarah," he breathed, his voice husky and amplified and pleading in her ear, and she melted. He caught her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, her black high heels falling off as they went.

Chuck realized, as he laid her back onto the pillows, that he owed her a lot of explanations, and that if their roles were reversed, he would be demanding the information from her no matter how seductive she was or how desperate he was. Perhaps that was the great irony of their meeting now, he briefly thought, before said thought was chased away by the sound of Sarah's heavy breathing in his own ear and the feeling of her fingers grazing across his bare chest. Chuck, who normally gave and demanded words, was meeting Sarah in territory she was familiar with: action.

The lights were on, the shutters on his windows wide open, and yet neither spy (for that's what both of them were now) seemed to care, or even notice. Chuck's brain seemed to be on hyper drive, taking in every inch of Sarah he possibly could. Coherent thought was a thing of the past - his world only consisted of her, the love of his life, panting his name, moving her body in time with his, giving herself to him in a way he had never thought would actually occur.

Chuck wasn't surprised that his beautiful wallflower never called out loudly, that she was quiet and almost closed off as they finished. What he was surprised at, however, was the way she cuddled up to him a few minutes after they lay next to each other, coming down off of the high. He obliged without speaking, gratefully wrapping his long arms around her.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into the top of her head. "I'm sorry."

She nodded, and when Chuck felt tears dropping onto his collarbone, he held her more tightly. He repeated his apology over and over as she cried herself dry. He thought she had fallen asleep until he felt her pull slightly back so that she was looking up into his eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said back to him, face blotchy and a bit swollen.

He shushed her and pulled her head back into his chest.

"When do you have to get back?"

Sarah shook her head, as if she either didn't comprehend his question or didn't want to.

"Let me stay here," she mumbled, and his deep, rumbling chuckle told her that she couldn't.

"I should leave before he notices I'm gone."

"Shaw or Roland?"

She exhaled slowly. "Both."

"How about in a few hours? I'll set my alarm," Chuck murmured, reaching for his phone. Sarah nodded and closed her eyes. Chuck quickly set the alarm for midnight, wondering how he could make the time pass as slowly as possible. He decided to stay awake, to take in the feel of her as much as he could, to memorize the feel of her sweaty skin, the rhythm of her breathing, the scent of her hair.

It amazed him sometimes - actually, all the time, he thought ruefully - that she could look so vulnerable as she slept. That her guarded exterior was nowhere to be seen as she was peacefully tucked into his side. Her every move was endearing in a very not-Sarah way as she lay there next to him. Chuck caught a few nonsense words as she mumbled softly in her sleep and then flung an arm across his side, almost as if she were subconsciously making sure he was still there.

He supposed that many people were afraid of her. And rightly so - the amount of crime she had single-handedly ended had tipped off many rings to her whereabouts and her face. She had to be careful. She was a strong woman, but a marked woman. She was wanted just as much as the people the government had ordered her to take down.

And she was in his arms tonight, completely oblivious to everything. She trusted him.

Chuck closed his eyes briefly, wondering how he would be able to let her leave. The simple answer was that he couldn't - he wouldn't. How was he supposed to keep her here, with him?

After all, Chuck Bartowski was not a one-night stand man. Not even with Sarah Walker.

The alarm, of course, went off much too soon.

Sarah sat up slowly, stretching, and Chuck couldn't tear his eyes away from her. Sitting there, her curvaceous chest smoothly reflecting the lamplight, he could almost pretend that they were home - in their home, the one he had made up in his head - rather than in a numbered hotel room in Paris. Watching her get dressed, he made up his mind.

"Sarah, I didn't kill Hunter Perry." _Sorry, Casey._

She stopped pulling on her panty hose. "What?"

"I didn't kill Hunter Perry. I never finished the mission."

She was facing him now, eyes wide in disbelief. "Who did?"

He blinked a few times, looking down at his hands. "I can't tell you that."

"Chuck, if you never passed your Red Test, that means you committed a felony. Lying to the General about the outcome of a mission is a _felony_, Chuck. Don't you know that?"

He flopped back onto the bed. "I know, Sarah. I just…I wanted you to know. That I'm not a murderer."

She pulled her hosiery on roughly. "That's in the past, now, Chuck. I was wrong to bring it up." She paused, and he panicked when he realized she was slipping into her 'mission voice', the one she used when she was being as objective and unfeeling as possible.

"I've come to terms with the killing. You did it - or didn't do it, I guess - for your country. A murderer kills without cause, without orders. You - we," she corrected herself, "are spies. You changed. We all do. And I'm sure you've killed since then."

"But I haven't!" he said emphatically, sitting up again. "Sarah, I'm still Chuck. I'm still that guy. I bring in all of my marks…I stab them, I stun them, I tie them up. But I've never…killed another person. And I don't want to be…" he trailed off.

Sarah was looking at him the way she did when she understood him a little too much.

"It's really okay, Chuck."

"No, it isn't," he insisted, taking her hand. "Sarah, I don't want any of this without you. I don't want to be a spy anymore."

His pulse was thunderous in his ears as her expression morphed from sympathy to confusion.

"You - don't want to be a spy," she whispered, sitting there in her bra and panties.

"No." Chuck's mouth had gone completely dry.

Sarah wordlessly stood up to pull on her dress. When she had zipped it up and was slipping her feet into her shoes, Chuck couldn't stand it anymore. He got out of bed, hastily put his boxers back on, and went to stand in front of the mirror with her, where she was brushing out her mussed hair.

"Please say something, Sarah."

She put the brush down, picked up her tube of lipstick, and began to apply it to her lips. The fact that her hand was trembling was not lost on Chuck.

"Please don't leave, Sarah."

She put her things in her small purse and turned to walk to the door without meeting his eyes. Chuck followed her, only two steps behind. When she put her hand on the door knob, the world started to collapse around him.

"Please…don't…" he managed to rasp, taking hold of the slender ivory hand that wasn't tensed on the handle.

And finally - _finally_ - she spoke. She was facing away from him, her back rigid, but she spoke. And it wasn't his Sarah who said the words - it was Agent Walker, CIA Operative.

"I need time to think."

He clung to her hand even more tightly.

"But right now I have to get back."

His brown eyes shut in nothing short of anguish, he let her hand slip out of his as she quietly left the room. The space seemed to automatically dip in temperature and light without her there.

Chuck decided, as he fell back into the bed, that no matter what Sarah Walker did, he would always love her.

But that didn't keep him from hating her decisions at that particular moment.

* * *

Chuck crouched carefully behind the corner of the building, his gun held in front of him protectively. He tensed his finger on the trigger as he watched the two men speed walking down the street in the moonlight.

"I don't think so," he muttered, and in quick succession, had knee-capped both men with eerie precision. As they fell, crying out in Italian, Chuck ran over to them, switching his hold to his tranquilizer gun. Soon, both men were out cold, bleeding (but not life-threateningly), and had been dragged to the corner of the alleyway, where they were tied up securely.

"Giulia, both targets have been neutralized," he said in a low voice into his watch.

"Roger that, Charles," came the thickly-accented reply. He allowed himself a small smile as she continued. "That was fast."

"I'm always fast," he said dryly. "Do you need backup?"

"No, take them back to Trincea," she said quickly, her voice dropping to a whisper. He heard some background noise. "I've got company, but it won't take long. I'll meet you there."

Grunting, Chuck took the first man and slung him over his shoulder. "Too bad - I can't - flash - on - muscles," he complained to himself as he wobbled to his car, which was parked in the back of the alley. He had blood on his white button-down shirt and favorite dinner jacket once he was finished.

_I'll have to call Ellie and ask her how to get blood out of this material,_ he mused as he put the car in drive.

It was a quick trip to Trincea, but a very difficult feat to get both of the men down the narrow stairs of the base underneath Chuck's villa. It had just been installed a few months before. Chuck had even been included in designing it, and accordingly, it bore a weird resemblance to Castle, right down to the coloring of the equipment to where the armory locker was situated. Most days it made him feel a bit more at home. Tonight, however - and every other night since Sarah had walked out on him in Paris - it only caused him to be more on edge.

He was working on controlling his irritability when Giulia walked in, sweaty and dressed in black from head to toe. She was a new spy, his new partner, and a native of Italy (even though she had been trained in New York), which was helpful on many of their missions. They understood each other well, and although Giulia was extremely beautiful with her dark olive skin, straight black hair, and large hazel eyes, they had both made it clear that neither one of them was interested in the other.

"I'm…pretty new to this whole thing," she had said to him, shyly, when they had first met.

"The spying or having a partner?" he asked, grinning at her good-naturedly.

"Ah, both?"

They laughed, and he put a hand on her shoulder.

"I understand. You'll have your own part of the house. No need to feel pressured to actually act like we're married."

She had smiled at him so gratefully that Chuck saw a shadow of himself in her face from so long ago, when Sarah had mentioned them having separate bedrooms in their new 24/7 protection operation. And then he had promptly quashed that memory.

For that was, indeed, their cover: Giulia Monticellia Carmichael had become his wife in Italy. They had invited a sparse number of Chuck's local friends and coworkers, but he hadn't dared to say a thing to his family back home. As far as they knew, he was still getting his software company off the ground as well as working on his master's degree. He assuaged his guilty conscience by telling himself that they were better off not knowing, especially if they had to split their partnership and get a fake divorce. He wasn't sure if Ellie would be able to handle it.

Chuck didn't know much about Giulia. He knew she had a tan line on her left hand ring finger when she was first assigned to him, where he assumed a wedding band had resided. The fake one she had been given by the CIA didn't quite cover it, and so he deduced that she had either lost or left her husband. This fact, coupled with the sad expressions he sometimes saw on her face when she thought he wasn't paying attention made him feel very protective, almost like her brother.

And so that was how he related to her: she was a new Ellie. He knew she liked to sleep in as late as possible and that she was very proud of her grandmother's tiramisu recipe, which she made and shared with him on a weekly basis. They would eat it while they watched movies - Giulia would pick romantic comedies (mostly in Italian, to Chuck's good-natured consternation) while he would pick nerdy ones. They would watch a pick of Chuck's one night and one of Giulia's the next, laughing and talking. After so long alone, extrovert Chuck Bartowski needed a partner. And he was incredibly thankful for one who was easy to talk to and trust.

When Giulia sat down across from him, however, he immediately knew something was amiss.

"Is everything okay?"

She smiled at him, but the strange look never left her eyes.

"Ah, si, Charles," was the reply. "All of the marks have been apprehended. The team has been called in to clean the restaurant up."

She fell silent as she took off her bullet-proof vest.

"Then what's up?"

Giulia looked back up at him, a mixture of confusion and curiosity in her eyes. "Do people call you Chuck sometimes, Charles?"

Chuck put both of his palms on the table, his heart hammering. Beckman had made it clear to not let his new partner know anything personal about him until she said it was okay to do so.

"Uh…why do you want to know?" he asked evenly, a slight edge to his tone.

Giulia chewed on her bottom lip, considering. "There is a woman on the back porch who knows you as Chuck. She overpowered me so that I didn't shoot her."

"What?" he exclaimed, standing quickly, but she stood with him, holding her hands up to shush him.

"She did not hurt me," she continued quietly. "She told me to tell you - ah, I am not sure I will say it correctly…"

Chuck's mind buzzed disconcertingly. "What did she say, Giulia?"

She took a deep breath. "She said to tell you that she knows that, ah, Tron? That is right, I think…that it is your favorite movie. She said you like Milk Duds on your popcorn, and that your palms sweat when you get nervous. Which they do," she added, coincidentally. "I noticed that, too."

Giulia stopped. "I have no idea what any of that means, but I think that you do. Chuck?"

Chuck was running up the stairs of Trincea, not bothering to look back at her. Surely she wasn't here…it wasn't possible…after all these months of nothing, no news, no word sent out…

But she was.

Chuck hurtled through the kitchen door onto the back porch, where he skidded to a halt.

The night was balmy and smelled strongly of the grove of olive trees planted in the yard a few feet away from them. A blonde woman was sitting on the edge of the porch, her head resting against one of the pillars that held the roof up, looking out at the dark olive grove. When she heard his sloppy approach, she turned her head to look at him.

Chuck wasn't sure what to do or say when Sarah stood and walked toward him, a cautious look on her gorgeous face. She stopped when she was less than an arm's length away, rolling back and forth on the balls of her feet.

"I quit," she announced, and her voice was thick with emotion. Her blue eyes were apologetic, and for a second, Chuck wondered if she had been in as much pain as he had been.

"You quit," he repeated, wondering if he had heard her clearly.

"Yeah, I'm a civilian now," she said, putting her hands in her pockets without breaking eye contact.

Chuck stepped forward and pulled her into a rough embrace. As they held there, as they had so many times before, Sarah was the first one to speak.

"I'm so sorry, Chuck."

Chuck's mind was still in a whirlwind. There were so many questions he had, but at the moment, the only question he was able to frame into a coherent sentence was this:

"Sarah...you want to get married?"

She drew back from him, awestruck.

"What?"

"He just said, 'You want to get married?'" came a gleeful voice from the kitchen, and they both turned to see Giulia standing there, grinning foolishly in happiness. "But I think he really meant, 'I love you. You are my life. Will you please marry me?'"

Chuck began to chuckle, his face flushed with embarrassment and nervousness.

"So how 'bout it?" he asked again, looking down at her.

She smiled that smile - the one that drove him crazy, the one that made him happier than he ever remembered being before he met her.

"Okay," she said.

He cupped her face with both of his hands, hoping he wasn't hallucinating.

"Really?'

"Mmhmm," she confirmed, blushing to match him.

It didn't matter to Chuck that Giulia was standing there, laughing in delight as he picked Sarah up and swung her around in circles. It didn't matter to him that he was going to end his career as a spy the very next morning. It didn't even matter that Chuck knew he was going to have to have his brain overwritten again by his dad in order for the government to leave him and his new fiancée in peace. The only thing that mattered at that moment was Sarah and her lips.

He could figure out the rest later.


End file.
